Extrinsic Motivation Underlies Precise Temporal Production

The present study examined the effect of extrinsic motivation on temporal interval production. Observers were asked to produce the duration of 2.5 sec as accurately as possible, and gained or lost a certain amount of score after each trial. The amount of provided scores varied with the color of target: red or green circle was assigned to high or low scores. We found that the higher amount of expected gain and loss decreased the absolute error of temporal production. However, no effect of motivation was found on the constant error and variable error. These results suggest that extrinsic motivation improved the precision of temporal production. We propose that the striatal dopamine system may mediate motivational influences on time perception.